Owning to the success of the Grameen Bank and other microfinance institutions in recent years, microfinance institutions’ role as a potential policy tool in poverty alleviation has received considerable attention. Empirical evidence from existing research shows some positive results in...

This paper investigates the cost efficiency of the Vietnamese banking industry. To obtain an appropriate estimate of cost efficiency, monotonicity and concavity constraints are incorporated in the estimation of the cost frontier using the Bayesian approach. Overall, the level of cost efficiency...

This paper investigates the behavior of capital buffers of Australian banks to changes in the business cycle. More particularly, whether there is a behavioral difference between big and small banks, and whether the 2008-09 global financial crisis influenced bank behavior with respect to capital...

In 1949 Nicholas Kaldor co-authored a report whose recommendations, if implemented, would have revolutionized international economic policy-making. National and International Measures for Full Employment (NIFE) had been commissioned by the United Nations (UN). A capstone to efforts throughout...

In the history of Burma's political economy, few groups have been so roundly vilified as the Chettiars. A community of moneylenders indigenous to Chettinad, Tamil Nadu, the Chettiars operated throughout the Southeast Asian territories of the British Empire. They played a particularly prominent...

The purpose of this paper is to suggest ways in which core labour standards can be incorporated into the WTO. Though regarded by some as simply a vehicle for protectionism, the campaign for core labour standards is based on sound economics that extends the logic of trade regulation to the...